Athens: Jobless Woman Sets Herself on Fire

A dark street. A scream. A flame. A muffled noise. Then silence. And a few words on a newspaper. No name. But just the age: 20 years old. A new tragedy in a recession-hit country.

According to Democratia newspaper, a young jobless woman set herself on fire on Tuesday night near the small stream behind Amalia Fleming Hospital, in Melisia suburb of Athens.

Residence of the area alarmed the police, after they found a charred corpse. The residents had rushed to the street when they heard a woman scream and saw a kind of flash light through their windows.

Reportedly, the following morning a middle-aged man went to police station to declare the disappearance of his 20-year-old daughter. With the help of forensic photographs the man could recognize his daughter.

The young woman was unemployed.

UPDATE: In another desperate incident, a young nurse jumped to death from 6th floor after losing job. Two suicides committed by young people in the last 24 hours. How awful!

Greece saw a sharp increase of suicides since the beginning of the crisis 3 years ago. Reports speaks of 3,000 people to have committed suicide.

5 comments

The needless death of this young woman with all the rest of her life in front of her sums up the hopeless despair felt by the young unemployed in Greece and Spain. Over at The EC The mandarins of the hideous fiscal regieme which has ruined many formerly happy and solvent mediterranean countries should think again about the austerity policy & -the UNs Agenda 21 by any other name – and resign.